Heading off to the Overland Track

It's past midnight here, this means today's the day when I will take the bus to Launceston after work. There I plan to do some late-night shopping for supplies, spend the night at the Arthouse hostel and early on Saturday morning I will take the bus to Cradle Mountain for a week of hopefully exciting wilderness adventure on the Overland Track.

Today I finalised packing my equipment and supplies and I must admit, when I first grabbed my backpack I was shocked by its weight, I didn't expect it to be so heavy!! It almost scared me a little bit, but then it turned into excitement. I left my backpack on and walked around in my apartment, and after 15 minutes it didn't feel that heavy anymore, I think I can get used to it. And I'm not someone who tends to give up quickly.

I probably carry a lot of stuff that other people would leave at home. For example I will carry food supplies for at least 10 days, most people need about 6 days on the Overland Track, but if the weather is fine I'd like to spend as much time as possible there and do as many side trips as possible. I took leave until the 5th January so I basically have two weeks to spend and I am totally flexible with time. I noticed the food supplies are probably the heaviest part of my pack but this part is getting less every day, so I just need to eat as much as possible and it should get better.

There are another couple of things that other people would leave at home, my camera tripod for example. I'm looking forward to taking some really good landscape shots there and I hope it’s worth carrying a tripod. I also noticed I could save around 2kg by using a different tent and lightweight outdoor clothing, but like I wrote in an earlier post, this trip is all about getting experience. When I'm back I will start to replace everything that didn't work as expected. A new tent with a weight of around 1kg will be one of the first purchases, my current one weights 2,5kg which is way too heavy.

So let's wait and see how this trip turns out, I'm really excited. So much could happen, from snow to snake bites (but I have gaiters now), from a missed bus to my backpack getting raided by possums, but I'm totally positive. I feel like I felt before my cycling trip in February, the departure day is approaching and I'm wondering what will happen and if it was a good idea to do this, it's another big challenge and somehow it thrills me.

My cycling trip around Tasmania almost ended in a disaster on the first day when I realised after 2km that I'm not in the physical shape to do that, but I didn't panic, I simply took a break, then rode slowly and in the end I rode 500km around (half of) Tassie. With the Overland Track it could go in a similar fashion, the first days will probably be a nightmare with the heavy pack, but maybe then it will be such a fantastic experience that I don't want to leave until all chocolate peanuts are eaten up.